Russia said on Monday that it had successfully test launched a Tsirkon (Zircon) hypersonic cruise missile from a submarine for the first time. President Vladimir Putin has appreciated it as part of a new generation of unrivalled arms systems.
The Russian defence ministry said that the Severodvinsk submarine had fired the missile in the Barents Sea and it successfully hit the target. The launch occurred at night as the video footage released by the ministry showed.
Russia tested firing the Tsirkon missile from a warship in July. President Putin declared a series of new hypersonic weapons in 2018 in one of his most belligerent speeches in years, saying they could hit almost any point in the world and evade a US-built missile shield.
